Misty Water-Colored Memories
by bloom-and-grow-forever
Summary: Sharon struggles to deal with a surprisingly difficult loss and all its implications.


Hi, everyone! _Huge_ thanks to lolcat202 for her genius and her sharp, raging feminist eye. The title of this fic is a lyric from "The Way We Were" by Barbra Streisand.

Enjoy!

* * *

Sharon would never forget the first time she saw Jack Raydor. The banality of the interaction and the fate of their relationship should have ensured the memory's loss, but somehow, she could still envision the tussled, golden hair, the aesthetically faded bomber jacket, the presumptuous wink he shot to her college roommate, Becky Ginnis, as they sat on the quad comparing notes. She didn't see him again until the following spring, when they were partnered for a debate in Sharon's first pre-law course.

She kicked his ass.

Unfortunately, those early years were forever tainted by the forty years that followed. In many ways, his alcoholism, gambling, and desertion completely destroyed those happy memories, but now, she couldn't imagine a time when she would think of him without seeing the blue hue of his skin, smelling antiseptic, and shivering, as she had when Dr. Morales led her into the exam room.

"Sharon?" The use of her first name unnerved her. Dr. Morales was part of their departmental family, but he had always insisted on a formality that prevented his commission in personal emergencies. Her retirement forced the change, especially in this situation, when the surname that connected her to the victim should be avoided.

"I'm sorry, Doctor. What was that?" Her monotone relieved her. Andy was waiting on the other side of the glass, and she knew he would look for any sign that she needed him. Normally, she welcomed his assistance, bordering on hovering, after so many years of indifference and neglect from the first man who was supposed to be her partner for life, but not today. When Andy joined his wife in retirement, it allowed for a shift in their priorities, as individuals and as a couple. Rusty had moved out the previous spring, so his constant care and confidence bolstering no longer dominated Sharon's concern. Midnight murders and rehearsed testimonies no longer dictated their routine. In fact, for the last month, the only thing dominating or bolstering Andy Flynn was an eager and aroused Sharon Raydor.

Jack always knew how to steal her focus.

"I said that I did my best to… make him presentable," Dr. Morales said, his gloved fingers wrapped around the sheet, the sound of squishing rubber making Sharon nauseous. "But, Sharon, there wasn't much I could do. I'm sorry to say that I can't make this any easier."

Sharon responded with a curt nod and fixed her eyes on Jack's head, the first lump under the sheet. She focused on his white hair at first, grateful to find no blood there. Two steps later, she realized most of the damage had been to the front of his crushed skull, and she forced her eyes toward his torso, down to his broken wrist. She hoped the nausea would pass with a couple of deep breaths, but she only smelled death, decay.

"He has a tattoo on his right ankle." Identification from facial features was out of the question. "It's our children's initials." She stumbled over the words and gripped the icy steel next to Jack's blanketed ankles. At this point, no hope lingered. Within hours, patrol had verified that it was indeed Jack's Nissan Rogue wrapped around the utility pole, his coworkers confirmed the timeline, and his cell phone went straight to voicemail when Sharon called him numerous times on the way to the morgue. The knot churning in her gut was the beginning of grief.

When Dr. Morales rolled the sheet over his ankle, revealing the tribute to the children he had just reconciled with, several tears bounced off the table before Sharon could nod.

"Okay, that's the hard part," Morales said, his usual levity completely absent from his voice. "Since you are still listed as his next of kin, I'm authorized to release his personal effects to you."

Sharon tore her eyes away from the body and choked out the question burning a hole in her throat. "Doctor, have you run his blood alcohol level?"

Morales faltered only once in his return to Sharon's side, a large envelope in hand. "He wasn't drinking," he said. He offered the misshapen receptacle to Sharon and let his grip linger when Sharon grasped Jack's possessions. "He was hit by a distracted driver who hasn't come across my table yet. It wasn't his fault."

Sharon sniffled and stared at the florescent lights above her head, hoping they would scare away her tears as they would a sneeze. She had prepared herself for the worst, that he'd actually drunk himself to death. For once, she would be able to tell her children that it _wasn't_ him, that he truly wanted to stay this time.

"Doctor, thank you for taking care of him for me." She reached out to squeeze his arm through the gown. "I am grateful, as usual, for your comfort." Her voice broke on the last word, and she took a shuddering breath to hold back the tears.

Faced with Sharon's tears over the body of a man she had once loved beyond reason, and still loved in spite of herself, Morales wasn't sure how to react to such an emotional display. "He was… important to you." The unspoken part of his sentiment hung between them. _Of course I'd take care of him._

Reluctantly, Sharon returned to Jack's side. She may have been his next of kin, but part of their divorce clause exempted either one of them from responsibility after death. Jack's brother would plan his funeral. This would be goodbye.

She rummaged through the crinkling folder and gasped when her fingertips brushed the cool, familiar chain of Jack's crucifix. The first time she'd ever touched it, she'd thrown it onto the pile of Jack's clothes next to her bed, where they spent the day. When Jack held Ricky, just hours after he was born, his tiny hand clasped around it. Emily pronounced herself the luckiest daughter when Jack allowed her to bring it to kindergarten for show-and-tell. Now, forcing herself to look at what remained of his face, Sharon warmed the icy metal with her lips. When she held it against his hand, she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to picture the man with so much potential, passion, and poise. She thought she mourned that man long ago, but he was always buried inside the boisterous being he became. No, she mourned him now, all of him, the golden boy she married and the clay-footed husband she left behind, as he lay in front of her, practically in pieces.

* * *

That night, Andy held Sharon on the couch after she hung up with Ricky, the first notification. Initially, she insisted that she notify them alone. She refused to let their stepfather take any part in telling her kids that their father was dead. In grief, people misplaced their anger, and Emily and Ricky may need Andy in the coming weeks, months, perhaps years. She didn't want them to lash out at Andy and regret it later. However, after only a few minutes of sobbing by herself on the couch, she felt the cushion dip just before Andy drew her close enough to smell his shampoo and aftershave. Apparently, he couldn't allow her to go through yet another Raydor family crisis alone.

Andy picked up Emily from the airport at 3:00 a.m., delivering his stepdaughter to the master bedroom and excusing himself to Rusty's old room. Sharon patted the bed and Emily collapsed next to her, bursting into tears at her mother's whispered, "Baby, I'm so sorry." Emily finally cried herself to sleep as dawn broke over Griffith Park, but since Sharon saw the remainder of Jack's face every time she closed her eyes, she did not cry or sleep. The next morning, while Emily slept and Sharon and Andy mimicked their breakfast routine before Ricky's delayed flight arrived, Jack's brother called.

"Charlie." Sharon cleared her throat when she heard how hoarse she sounded. "How, um… how are you?" She fielded Andy's questioning gaze with a shake of her head.

"Not great," Charlie sighed. Even though Sharon hadn't spoken to Charlie in years, she could tell that the changes in his voice—the exhaustion, the devastation—stemmed from his grief, not the passage of time. "You?"

For the first time since she walked out of the morgue, it occurred to Sharon that perhaps her pain should be less than everyone else's. Charlie and Jack, as much as they disagreed (about nearly everything), loved each other. Sharon had once loved Jack, but she replaced him, first with independence and again with Andy Flynn. Surely, since she had spent the last several years happy without him, she shouldn't feel this way.

"Fine," Sharon managed. "Just waiting on the kids to get here. They need most of my attention right now." When Andy cleared his plate, Sharon handed him her untouched breakfast with an apologetic shrug.

Charlie hesitated before muttering, "Of course," in a way that reminded Sharon why Charlie and Jack fought. "Listen, um, I just wanted to fill you in on what I've got planned for the service. It's not much right now, but I'd like your opinion—"

"Charlie, I told you I don't want to be involved," Sharon said, her voice steadier than before. "Rosie will help you, won't she?"

" _Help_ is one word for what she'll do," Charlie sighed, somehow managing to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Much like Sharon, Rosie, their baby sister, had long since stopped falling for her brothers' attempts at manipulation.

Ignoring Andy's burning gaze, Sharon pushed out of her chair and stalked toward the balcony. She knew she should let it go, but sometimes the five stages of grief accosted their victim in an unconventional order. "You should be grateful she's doing anything," she snapped, yanking the patio door open. "Jack only ever called her when he needed money."

The weariness in Charlie's voice returned, this time laced with condescension. "Come on, I don't want to fight about this—"

If she had a dollar for every time Charlie didn't want to fight about Jack, she putting the kids through college would have been as easy as avoiding uncomfortable topics. "And yet you still insist on making everyone Jack ever hurt the bad guys," she said, rage churning in her gut. "We aren't bad people just because we finally learned to say no."

"Don't fault me for loving my brother." Just like that, Charlie definitely wanted to fight about this. "Just because I didn't give up on him when everyone else did doesn't make _me_ the bad guy either, Sharon."

Out of the corner of her eye, Sharon saw Emily walk into the living room, rubbing her red eyes. "You weren't the only one who didn't give up on him," Sharon hissed. "He had children that waited for him. So _forgive them_ for ignoring him after he disappointed them again, when he ignored them because they couldn't give him booze or chips."

"I don't know how many times I have to apologize for the way my brother treated you and the kids," Charlie said, the tenor and volume of his voice rising. "It wasn't my fault that he was such a bad father, okay?"

Sharon gripped the railing. "No, it wasn't. But you cannot tell me that you were the only one rooting for him. Don't make yourself out to be a martyr when you enabled him just as much as I did."

The silence, only interrupted by his deep breaths, should have let Sharon know what Charlie would say next.

"I didn't mean to _martyr_ myself. It's exhausting trying to validate my reasons for missing my brother."

In that moment, Sharon remembered counseling victims' loved ones, urging them not to say or do anything they might regret after the grief passes. Sharon considered her silence as a truce, not a concession. Charlie was still in the wrong, but with every unbearable emotion near its boiling point, nothing could be accomplished here. She sunk into the lounge chair and buried her face in her hands. _It shouldn't hurt this much._

"God, Charlie, what did he do to us?"

* * *

Three days later, Sharon, Emily, and Ricky huddled together front of Jack's grave, watching him leave for the last time. In his will, Jack requested to be buried with his parents in his home-town, Mount Vernon, Washington, probably the coldest place in the west to be in January. That Jack should have recognized his mortality in such a real way shocked everyone but Sharon. She remembered laughing at his meticulous attention to detail in the will he crafted when they were twenty-two years old. "Life is short," he'd teased, luring Sharon into his lap. "I can't leave you with nothing."

Sharon squeezed the hands of her oldest children. In the end, he didn't.

During the service, the church was packed with lawyers, district attorneys, judges, childhood friends, gambling and drinking buddies, family, and, in Rusty and Andy's case, family of family. On the stairs, leading up to the casket Sharon tried not to look at, sat a bouquet of flowers from her team, still acting as one unit even after they scattered across Los Angeles. With only the family left, the gravesite was much less crowded. Jack was always a likeable guy, if you didn't rely on him. As Sharon accepted Andy's handkerchief, she marveled at her bitter thoughts and salty tears. How she longed to feel only one thing. Angry, relieved, vindictive, heartbroken . She could have taken her pick.

Emily hugged her mother after the casket disappeared, and over Emily's shoulder, Sharon made eye contact with Rosie, whom she hadn't seen in ten years. The two of them had too much trouble in common to be good friends, but their mutual respect lasted longer than Sharon and Jack's marriage. Rosie only offered Sharon a watery smile before leading the rest of his family away from the grave.

"Okay," Sharon whispered, rubbing Emily's back with one hand and squeezing Ricky's arm with the other. "How do we feel, hmm? Are we going to the restaurant with everyone else?"

In an effort to conceal more falling tears, Ricky rubbed his forehead with his free hand. "I…can't, Mom. I'm sorry."

Emily detached herself from her mother and shook her head. "Me either."

Andy fished the rental car keys out of his pocket. "I'll get the car."

Once safely tucked away in the hotel, they all agreed a nap would cure their emotional exhaustion. None of them felt like eating, and Andy and Rusty insisted they could fend for themselves for lunch. Rusty, Ricky, and Emily retired to their room, leaving Sharon and Andy alone for the first time in days. Even so, Sharon shed her dress, bra, and panties in silence, allowing them to remain in a puddle by the bed. Andy was surprised when she crawled under the sheets without bothering to grab a nightgown or one of his shirts.

"Can I get you anything?" he asked, still unbuttoning his dress shirt.

Curled up on her side, facing away from Andy, Sharon shook her head. "I haven't slept in a few days, and I'm just… tired." _Of feeling, of worrying, of keeping my eyes open._

After draping his dress shirt over the back of the desk chair across the room, Andy walked around to Sharon's side of the bed and knelt down in front of her. Her eyes, though red, were still dry, but she shied away from his intense gaze. He only wanted to take her pain away, but he'd yet to adjust being with a person who preferred to absolve herself of guilt before letting go of pain.

"I'm here if you need me," Andy said, brushing her hair behind her ear.

Sharon held his hand to her cheek before he could pull away. "I know. Thank you." Tilting her head, she kissed Andy's palm and nuzzled it. "Come to bed." She giggled when Andy crawled over her, his undershirt and boxers brushing her shoulder. As soon as Andy settled on his back next to her, Sharon rolled over and covered her body with his, grinning deviously.

"Sharon, you need sleep," Andy protested, his hands pushing at her hips.

Sharon kissed him slowly, reveling in the firm grip of his fingers , regardless of their intent. "I changed my mind. I need you."

He was never one to say no when she said she needed him. Andy threw his leg over Sharon's hip and flipped them, pinning her arms the bed. "Please don't ask me fuck you an hour after you buried your ex-husband," he said. "I can't take—I can't."

Though his hold wasn't tight, Sharon struggled to wrench her arms free. "I just want to stop feeling _everything_ at once. Is that too much to ask?" she demanded, slamming one fist on the mattress. "I shouldn't even _feel_ half of what I do. He left me, he left my children, he let us down countless times— _why_ do I care? Why can't I just be angry at him?"

"Because he wasn't a horrible person his whole life." Andy eased off of Sharon, confident that she wouldn't jump him now that she'd turned her anger on him. "You didn't think you were falling in love with an addict, babe."

Sharon threw the covers back and launched herself off the bed, her need to feel only one thing firmly directed at the man still stretched across the mattress. She pulled his dress shirt off the back of the chair and punched her arms through the sleeves with so much force she was shocked she didn't send his cufflinks flying . "That shouldn't matter," she snapped. Instead of buttoning the shirt, she wrapped the sides around her waist as tightly as they would stretch. "I have you. I love _you_. Those memories, the good times—I don't need those anymore." She gripped her hair with both hands, half-tempted to tear strands from her scalp. "I'm so _angry_ at him, angrier than I've ever been, and this is the one time the disaster wasn't his fault. He hurt me and the kids again, and he wasn't even _trying_. It should hurt less! It wasn't even about me!" She broke off, knuckles white from keeping the shirt wrapped around her tight enough. "Charlie and Rosie lost their brother, for God's sake. I loved him, but I just want this to stop—". One hand flew to her mouth, and she choked back sobs that made her chest ache .

Before Andy could go any further than swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Sharon was beside him, falling into his lap, maintaining her death grip on his shirt. When Andy rubbed both hands up and down her back, the first cry Sharon felt for herself erupted, and suddenly she could scarcely draw breath. Until now, her tears had been for her kids or for Jack's family, for all they'd lost, and for the promise that Jack had made her, when they were young and unscathed. These tears were the outlet for her grief, not only over Jack's death, but for all the times he contradicted his passionate love by inflicting such unbearable pain. She cried until she hiccupped salty gasps, cried until all she could breathe was Andy and herself and this room, with its cheap comforter and carpet that was working red patterns into her knees.

Eventually, Sharon's arms loosen between them, and her shuddering breaths steadied. She felt Andy lean back on the bed, still holding her to his chest, and roll to his side, so they lay diagonally across the bed. He covered her legs with the sheets and duvet, but she refused to shift for more coverage. She had everything she needed. With Andy's arm still under her neck, Sharon allowed sleep keep her from suffocating.

After a few minutes of supervising Sharon's uninterrupted slumber, Andy froze, listening to Sharon's lengthy inhale, when he felt Sharon's arm snake around his middle.

"Thank you," she breathed.

"Shh, babe, go back to sleep," Andy whispered, running his fingers rhythmically through her hair.

As a small mercy, Sharon's eyes remained closed, but she would not be silenced. "The other emotions—they went away for a while. I just felt one." When Andy grasped her searching hand, she burrowed further into his chest. It wasn't over, and she knew that. The hardest part of grief was the complexity and unpredictability. Her despondent mind only needed the opportunity to navigate the clouded judgement her grief forced on her, a reprieve from being overwhelmed by everything she had ever felt about Jack. Sharon had a feeling she had just taken her first step out of the fog.


End file.
